Soha Housing Annual Report

Soha Housing is a successful, award-winning, community-based housing provider working in and around south Oxfordshire. They provide homes for affordable rent and shared ownership for people who prefer to rent (or who can't afford to rent or buy in the private sector).

Syndicut have worked with Soha Housing, a local not-for-profit business, to create a new and engaging annual report. Not only informative, the new format showcases Soha tenants’ work through a collection of video shorts, all created, filmed and edited by the residents. The shorts are housed within a microsite, ‘Soha Shorts’ (http://www.sohashorts.co.uk/).

One of the project’s objectives was to encourage tenants’ participation through the featured shorts, highlighting key topics such as customer services, responsive repairs and environment. The microsite also contains a Storify feed to pull through additional comments from Twitter and YouTube by using #SohaShorts and a functionality for visitors to comment on the clips encouraging further engagement.

In addition, the annual reports included a reply mechanism for tenants’ feedback to be in with a chance of winning a £100 Amazon voucher just in time for Christmas. The report was designed as a concertina pull out summarising the business’s key information such as financial breakdown, value for money and so on. The information is displayed in a clear and concise way to cater for all Soha’s customers. Readers of the report praised the clean and clear layout that made the information easier to read and follow as well as the format itself. The microsite has also attracted additional attention via the Storify feed and the commenting functionality on the clips.

So far Soha has received 125 responses since mailing it at the end of September, more than the total number received in 2014. Sarah Stokes, Communications Manager said “Syndicut made a fantastic pitch to our tenants and were the clear choice of agency for this project. They introduced our tenant-led team to the art of making a short film and produced a clear, well-designed companion piece in the paper report. We’ve had lots of compliments on the new format and the tenants who took part really enjoyed the experience. I’m looking forward to seeing how they top it next year!”